Sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this phenomenal piece by Ian Robinson. It was written in the 1980s and traces the remarkable story of the pioneering Italians that helped to build South Africa's first major manufacturing industry.
Gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886 and the subsequent development of the gold mines required large quantities of dynamite. As there was no local manufacturing industry, all requirements had to be imported.
At the end of 1887 the South African Republic granted Edouard Lippert, a German, the exclusive right to sell explosives. He established a company - the Zuid-Afrikaansche Maatschappij van Ontplofbare Stoffen - which imported explosives from the Nobel organisation in Europe.
Dynamite was delivered in blocks and a factory was established at Leeuwfontein, east of Pretoria, to shape the explosives into cartridges, wrap and pack them for dispatch to the Witwatersrand mines 60km away.
A manager and workers were brought from Nobel factories in Europe to Leeuwfontein. Many employees were from the town of Avigliana, near Turin in Italy where the Nobel organisation had opened a factory in 1872. About 1 000 workers were employed at the Avigliana operation in 1890, Wages were generally very low and some workers earned as little as 2.40 lire (less than two shillings) per 12-hour day.
The promise of a better life in South Africa and a spirit of adventure lured workers from Avigliana to Leeuwfontein and eventually the number of employees totalled about 60, of whom approximately half were...
